GTX470 vs Quadro 4000? No hesitation: the GTX470! But if you had the budget to go with a Quadro, then get the newer generation GTX570. As Jim pointed out, it is slower (slower clock speed, less cores). You get the most bang for the buck with a GTX. There is no quality difference between a Quadro and a GTX. You just pay more for less.

The 3 GB version is better if editing large pixel dimensions of stills or RED material. For normal HD it is pretty useless today, but if the price difference is small, better be safe than sorry and go for the 3 GB version.

Good call on deciding to go for a GTX 580 (if you must have the absolute fastest currently available GPU on the market). Between your existing GTX 470 and the Quadro 4000, like the others have said, the Quadro is a waste of money unless you're planning to run 3D modeling/design software in addition to video editing software. That Quadro 4000 is based on a cut version of the same GPU that's used on the GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480: All are based on the GF100 GPU with various numbers of CUDA cores disabled and various degrees of memory bus bandwidth. In this comparison, the Quadro 4000 has only 256 CUDA cores with a 256-bit memory bus; the GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores and a 320-bit memory bus; the GTX 480 has 480 CUDA cores and a 384-bit memory bus. Based on hardware specs alone, the only Quadro GPU that's competitive with even a GTX 470 would be the top-of-the-line (and astronomically expensive) Quadro 6000.

"Based on hardware specs alone, the only Quadro GPU that's competitive with even a GTX 470 would be the top-of-the-line (and astronomically expensive) Quadro 6000."

You mean there will not be big diffence if I replace GTX470 to 580,based on my hardware specs?Cause the cuda cores 512 instead of 448?I like to know the difference based on the real using editing, not based on nvidia catalogue specs.

What is important for me to get faster editing functions, when I use video effects (Red giants, newblue ) and preview after effects

On the other hand, yes, there will be a tangible performance increase with the GTX 570 over the GTX 470, especially if the GTX 470 is a reference card using its stock reference cooler. The GTX 570 actually has 480 CUDA cores, not 512 CUDA cores. It is the GTX 580 that has 512 CUDA cores.

If your current 470 is working OK, I would not change it at this moment but wait for the new GTX 600 series. The performance gains with a 570/580 over a 470 are pretty small and IMO not worth the investment. The tangible gain that Randall talks about, I have not seen. Look at Benchmark Results to determine how tangible the results differ.

I was unclear as to what "tangible" means, in this comparison. There is a slight performance improvement with the 570 and 580, but the improvement is not enough to justify spending more money on a new card.

I found on Videoguys website this advice for VGA card.Based on their site it looks they have experience in video editing.

But I dont understand why they offer Quadro instead of GTX cards.Maybe they have a bigger margin of quadro cards? :-))

Here's the quote :

" We recommend nVidia Quadro based graphics cards for video editing because of their superb CUDA and Open GL support. Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop & After FX, Avid Media Composer, Red Giant Magic Bullet & Boris FX all take advantage of Open GL. You will see more and more video editing software take advantage of Open GL GPU power as new versions of NLEs get released. This is the key the reason why we recommend Quadro cards over less expensive 3D gaming cards. While you can do fine with a 3D gaming card, Quadro cards are designed and engineered for this kind of work - and the NLE engineers are optimizing their applications to take advantage of this GPU Open GL power"

I consider their statement as misleading, but maybe that is because it is incomplete.

If one is heavily involved in 3D work with Maya, 3DSMax, Vue, Autodesk etcetera, then the driver support of a Quadro may be an advantage. The Quadro does have the 10 bit output which is nice for colorists with monitors like the HP Dreamcolor, but they do not offer performance benefits over the 'gaming' cards, on the contrary and BFTB wise they are definitely unattractive. Generally it is often wiser and more helpful for performance to buy a less expensive 'gaming' card and use those savings to invest in more memory or more disks. Remember that all Adobe programs work perfectly well with 'gaming' cards, as do the plug-ins mentioned and OpenGl is supported by all these 'gaming' cards. If you don't have a HP Dreamcolor monitor, I think the Quadro's are way overpriced. nVidia protects their cash cow by artificially limiting the sale of Quadro's to one single company, PNY and keeping the prices high in that way.

1) The results become limited by the CPU, not the GPU. You are running a non-K i7-2600, which is only limited overclockable. And I assume that you are running it at its default ("stock") speed.

2) There is a slight performance increase on the Quadro with such multilayered material - but that increase does not justify a nearly four-fold increase in price. The closest current GeForce GPU in performance to your current GTX 470 is the GTX 560 Ti, which costs about $225 - but the Quadro 4000 costs about $800.

I have a question. for after effects, premiere pro, photoshop CS5, is using an adobe-recommended card really required like adobe says? or does it simply fallback to using the CPU? I would like to know, because right now I am spec'ing a CS5 machine, which I plan on using CS6 or CS7 (if it comes out) on later. so my video requirements may change. and in either case,I may be having to stay with a quadro card. I am not sure I can even get a GTX 470 *new* in 2013. I am not sure if I want to wait 2 more months just to save up to get a quadro 4000 so I can be compatible with the future and work with the now. but maybe this is my best option really for planning...

if I can get by with a nice GTX 660 ti 3GB newer unsuported kepler architecture, dx11, then I would be grateful to end this mess I) have been going through with the video card and adobe.

I wish adobe would just recompile and re-release updates for older products so we can use more up-to-date cards no matter the version of adobe we are using... if everybody starts putting in some requests on the adobe wishform (search for it) for this, maybe adobe will do something about it. it seems like you have to vote for your bug... or you simply get it in the next major version of adobe... :-(